1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed herein relates generally to mailpieces and more particularly, a hazardous material detector for detecting hazardous material in a mailstream.
2. Background of the Invention
The United States accounts for the largest domestic letter traffic in the world, handling almost 200 billion pieces of mail each year. The United States Postal Service (USPS) employs more than 850,000 employees and operates more than 44,000 post offices throughout the country. In many respects, the economy of the country is dependent upon the postal system being able to efficiently and quickly deliver mailpieces. Any type of major disruption in the delivery of mail could have potentially serious detrimental effects on the country as a whole. In addition to the USPS, various services are used in the United States and other countries for delivery of mail to individuals and businesses to recipients to whom the sender does not want to deliver personally. These services include, for example, the United States Postal Service (USPS) and other courier services, e.g., Federal Express®, Airborne®, United Parcel Service, ® DHL®, etc., hereinafter called “carriers”. Unfortunately, sometimes the delivered materials may be illegal and/or hazardous to the health of the recipient and to the party who is delivering the goods, e.g., life-harming.
Soon after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the United States, someone and/or a group of people, has been adding harmful biological agents to the mail such as, for example, the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), within or on a mailpiece. Such contaminants can be carried in several forms, including for example, a powder form. Other examples of life-harming materials are explosives; gun powder; blasting material; bombs; detonators; smokeless powder; radioactive materials; ammunition; atomic weapons; chemical compounds or any mechanical mixture containing any oxidizing and combustible units, or other ingredients in such proportions, quantities, or packing that ignite by fire, friction, concussion, percussion or detonation of any part thereof which may and is intended to cause an explosion; poisons; carcinogenic materials; caustic chemicals; hallucinogenic substances; illegal materials; drugs that are illegal to sell and/or dispense; and substances which, because of their toxicity, magnification or concentration within biological chains, present a threat to biological life when exposed to the environment, etc.
The harmful effects of only a few contaminated mailpieces can be far reaching, as cross-contamination of other mailpieces can easily occur when the mailpieces come in contact with each other or are passed through the same machines during processing. The addition of harmful biological agents to the mail submitted to the USPS has caused the death of some people and necessitated the closure of some post offices and other government office buildings and has caused delays in the processing and delivery of mail. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that tens of thousands of mailpieces could have become cross-contaminated from only two contaminated mailpieces. The use of the postal system for such purposes has resulted in the need for a reliable way to detect small amounts of loose and possibly dangerous particulate matter present in mail processing machines so as to reduce the number of mailpieces that can become cross contaminated by the mail sorting machine by identifying the contamination early through testing. This will also reduce the number of contaminated mailpieces that are eventually opened by intended recipients.
Individuals who receive and handle mail are encouraged to use safety precautions such as: washing their hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling mailpieces; avoiding shaking mailpieces; avoiding bumping or sniffing mailpieces; and avoiding handling of mailpieces suspected of contamination. These measures can be impractical when the volume of mail is large. Thus, there is an urgent need to exclude or detect life-harming materials that contaminate mail processing equipment in such a way that the likelihood of cross contamination is reduced by timely sampling and detection.
Ideally, it would be desirous for the postal authority to examine and/or test each piece of mail individually for any possible contaminants before it enters the mail system, thereby isolating any contaminated mailpieces and preventing any cross-contamination. Such examination could be performed, for example, by visually inspecting each mailpiece for a powdery substance contained therein. With the large volume of mail processed daily, however, the cost and time associated with visually inspecting each piece of mail makes such inspection unfeasible. It is imperative that any such testing and/or examination be capable of being performed both cost effectively and quickly to avoid delays in processing and delivering the mail.
Thus, there exists a need for a reliable way to quickly and cost effectively sample and/or detect small amounts of loose and possibly dangerous particulate matter in a mail processing equipment. There is an urgent need to sample and/or test the presence of life-harming materials that are included in the mail in such a way that cross contamination is reduced. One of the problems of the prior art is that a system is not available for sampling particulate matter present in mail processing equipment. Therefore, a device for sampling particulate matter in mail processing equipment is needed.